newsletter 69

BULLETIN NEWSLETTER Contents

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Submissions

Submissions and ideas for publica-tion are appreciated. They shouldbe sent to the editor:

Email:[email protected]: 709-864-6945Fax: 709-864-2009Mail: Prof. Sharene Bungay

CAIMS rSCMAI SecretaryDepartment of Comp. Sci.Memorial Univ. of Nfld.St. John’s, NL A1B 3X5

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Inserts and non-advertising submissions(including letters to the editor) should benegotiated with the Secretary. Inquiriesabout deadlines, payment and acceptableformats should be directed to the Secre-tary.

Publication Information

The Canadian Applied and IndustrialMathematics Society / Société Canadi-enne de Mathématiques Appliquées et In-dustrielles (CAIMS rSCMAI) is a mem-ber society of the International Councilfor Industrial and Applied Mathematics(ICIAM). The newsletter is published atleast once a year.

Editor: Sharene BungayDesign and Production: Sharene Bungay,

Sam BromleyPhotographs: Sue Ann Campbell,

Roderick Melnik, Ray Spiteri,Margo Kondratieva

Reports from the Society

President’s Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Board of Directors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Minutes from 2014 AGM . . . . . . . . . . . 9Committee Members . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15Report on CAIMS 2014 . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Society Updates

CAIMS rSCMAI Awards . . . . . . . . . . 182015 Election – Call for

Nominations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212014 Nerenberg Lecture . . . . . . . . . . . 22

General News and Upcoming

Conferences

Fields Institute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23CRM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26PIMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28Waterloo Summer School . . . . . . . . . .30BioMath Days . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31Canadian Undergraduate MathematicsConference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32Blundon Mathematics Seminar . . . . . 33

Back Cover

CAIMS rSCMAI 2015 Announcement

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Reports from the Society BULLETIN NEWSLETTER

President’s Report

by Ian Frigaard, CAIMS rSCMAI President

First let me start by wishing all CAIMS rSCMAI members a Happy New Year for2015 and I hope it will be a productive and busy one for you all.

The second year of my presidency has whizzed by at lightning speed, coincid-ing personally with a sabbatical year, moving house and other stressful life likefilling in the Canadian Common CV! At times like this I realise what a bonus itis to have a strong executive and board. In June 2014 Dhavide Aruliah of UOITstepped down after a very long and active period as Treasurer. Dhavide has beenheavily involved in financial, IT and membership issues over the past 6 years, do-ing a phenomenal amount of work in addition to his regular duties. I would liketo thank him most sincerely and wish him a few years of relative peace and quiet!Another key member of the board that stepped down was Matt Davison of West-ern who had been chair of our membership committee for many years. Our thanksand best wishes go to Matt and also to Hongmei Zhu (York University) and NilimaNigam (SFU), whose terms as members at large came to an end.

Three new faces on the board for 2014 are Huaxiong Huang (York University),Steve Ruuth (SFU) as members at large, and Lucy Campbell (Carleton University)as Treasurer. At last year’s AGM we voted to enlarge the board and executive bythe addition of a Communications Officer. Luciano Buono (UOIT) was electedto be the first holder of this position. I’d like to welcome all to the board andlook forward to working with all the new and existing members in the comingyear. Executive business has been made easier through monthly skype meetings,lessening the amount of business that builds up. This is convenient for sabbaticalyears too.

As a new position, the terms of reference of the Communications Officer needto be clarified and this has been ongoing with Luciano. One key goal for thisyear is to manage the translation of the www-site into French. This will com-plete the upgrade of our www-site as well as improve accessibility to an impor-tant segment of Canadian applied mathematicians. The main other duty relatesto CAIMS rSCMAI activity groups. Our role here is to support activities thatthe membership wants and which enhance the general mathematical landscapein Canada. Although not a funding body CAIMS rSCMAI will target a modestamount of financial support in this direction — so please do take advantage andgive leadership in your area.

Lucy inherits a financially healthy portfolio, but one main challenge for thisyear comes from outside. CAIMS rSCMAI needs to update its registration andstatus with Corporations Canada (“the feds”) which involves a rewriting of ourbylaws and operating policies, together with our tax reporting. I’d like to thank theofficers of CMS and SSC who have been very helpful in practical advice on how

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BULLETIN NEWSLETTER Reports from the Society

to proceed. Interesting issues have arisen from legal discussions, e.g. we cannotdecide a tied vote with a coin toss, and more will certainly come up. Overall wewill see an increase in importance of the AGM at the annual meeting, in ratifyingelections and other committee business. You will have to work harder for yourfree lunch in future years!

Ray Spiteri of University of Saskatchewan has survived his first year as President-elect and also was main organiser for our 2014 meeting in Saskatoon. The meetingwas held in the Bessborough hotel, overlooking the South Saskatchewan river. Thefive conference themes were Applied Analysis and Dynamical Systems, Mathe-matical Biology, Financial Mathematics, Scientific and High-Performance Com-puting and Fluid dynamics (21st Canadian Symposium for Fluid Dynamics). Ahost of other lectures were given. A software carpentry bootcamp ran in paralleland a workshop on Combinatorial Applications in Biology, Chemistry and Physicspreceded the conference, held at the University of Saskatchewan. I’d like to thankall those who volunteered their time to organize the meeting, put together confer-ence themes and mini-symposia. The meeting coincided with a Jazz festival in thepark outside, which prompted musical entertainment at the banquet, including anunforgettable performance from Captain Spiteri himself!

The meeting was also an opportunity to celebrate our colleagues achievementsthrough awarding of the annual CAIMS rSCMAI prizes. The 2013 Cecil GrahamDoctoral Dissertation Award was awarded to Dr. Frances Mackay of the Univer-sity of Western Ontario for her thesis titled: “Hybrid lattice Boltzmann - molecu-lar dynamics simulations with both simple and complex fluids”, completed underthe supervision of Prof. Colin Denniston. The 2014 CAIMS/PIMS Early CareerAward was awarded to Prof. Geoff Wild of the University of Western Ontario,cited for his creative use of mathematical modelling to address fundamental ques-tions in evolutionary biology. The CAIMS-Mprime industrial mathematics prizewas awarded to Prof. John Stockie of Simon Fraser University, for his interdis-ciplinary research with a number of different industries over the years (BallardPower Systems, North American Maple Syrup Council, Teck-Cominco, etc.). The2014 CAIMS rSCMAI Research award was presented to Prof. Michael Doebeli ofthe University of British Columbia for his contributions to the mathematical theoryof the evolution of diversity and the evolution of cooperation. Finally, the ArthurBeaumont Distinguished Service Award honours members of CAIMS rSCMAI foroutstanding service to the society or to Applied Mathematics in Canada. The 2014awardee is Professor Arvind Gupta of MITACS.

I’d like to congratulate all of the prizewinners for their achievements and wishthem future success. The full citations are listed on our website. Please think ofany deserving nominees from amongst your colleagues and be proactive in puttingtheir names forward.

In 2014/5 MPrime is coming to a close, winding down the mathematical arm

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of MITACS. This leaves a hole in financing for collaborative industrial research.NSERC of course has some great programmes enabling collaboration and I stronglyrecommend applying for these. With the 2014 renewal of funding to CRM, Fieldsand PIMS, NSERC also announced additional financial support to the institutesfor activities targeted at initiating industrial research cooperation. Although de-tails are not clear, this is promising news.

I am in the second year of my presidency, after which Ray Spiteri will takeover. I know we are in good hands. Sharene Bungay (MUN) will also retire nextyear, after serving 2 terms as our excellent secretary. It is therefore time to lookfor a new President (elect) and Secretary, please consider whether you or one ofyour colleagues would serve well in either capacity and send your suggestions toRay Spiteri, chair of the nominations committee.

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Board of Directors

President

Ian FrigaardDepartment of Mechanical EngineeringUniversity of British ColumbiaVancouver, BC B6T 1Z2Phone: 604-822-1316Fax: 604-822-2403Email: [email protected] ends: CAIMS rSCMAI 2015

Past President

Jianhong WuDepartment of Mathematics and StatisticsYork UniversityNorth York, Ontario M3J 1P3Phone: 416-736-2100 ext. 33116Fax: 416-736-5757E-mail: [email protected] ends: CAIMS rSCMAI 2015

President-Elect

Ray SpiteriDepartment of Computer ScienceUniversity of SaskatchewanSaskatoon, SK S7N 5C9Phone: 306-966-2909Fax: 306-966-4884Email: [email protected] ends: CAIMS rSCMAI 2015

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Communications Officer

Pietro-Luciano BuonoFaculty of ScienceUniversity of Ontario Institute of TechnologyOshawa, ON L1H 7K4Phone: 905-721-8668 ext. 2938Fax: 905-721-3304E-mail: [email protected] ends: CAIMS rSCMAI 2016

Secretary

Sharene BungayDepartment of Computer ScienceMemorial University of NewfoundlandSt. John’s, NL A1B 3X5Phone: 709-864-6945Fax: 709-864-2009E-mail: [email protected] ends: CAIMS rSCMAI 2015

Treasurer

Lucy CampbellSchool of Mathematics and StatisticsCarleton UniversityOttawa, ON K1S 5B6Phone: 613-520-2600 ext. 1208Fax: 613-520-3536E-mail: [email protected] ends: CAIMS rSCMAI 2016

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Member at Large

Ronald HaynesDepartment of Mathematics and StatisticsMemorial University of NewfoundlandSt. John’s, NL A1C 5S7Phone: 709-864-8825Fax: 709-864-3010E-mail: [email protected] ends: CAIMS rSCMAI 2016

Member at Large

Thomas HillenDepartment of Mathematical and Statistical SciencesUniversity of AlbertaEdmonton, Alberta T6G 2G1Phone: 780-492-3396Fax: 780-492-6826E-mail: [email protected] ends: CAIMS rSCMAI 2016

Member at Large

Huaxiong HuangDepartment of Mathematics and StatisticsYork UniversityToronto, ON M3J 1P3Phone: 416-736-2100 ext. 66090Fax: 416-736-5757Email: [email protected] ends: CAIMS rSCMAI 2017

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Member at Large

Greg LewisFaculty of ScienceUniversity of Ontario Institute of TechnologyOshawa, Ontario L1H 7K4Phone: 905-721-8668 ext. 2608Fax: 905-721-3304Email: [email protected] ends: CAIMS rSCMAI 2016

Member at Large

Roderick MelnikM2NeT Laboratory, HeadWilfrid Laurier UniversityWaterloo, ON N2L 3C5Phone: 519-884-1970 ext. 3662Fax: 519-884-9738E-mail: [email protected] ends: CAIMS rSCMAI 2015

Member at Large

Steve RuuthDepartment of MathematicsSimon Fraser UniversityBurnaby, BC V5A 1S6Phone: 778-782-4452Fax: 778-782-4947Email: [email protected] ends: CAIMS rSCMAI 2017

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Minutes of the CAIMS rSCMAI Annual General Meeting

Tuesday, June 24, 2014 Battleford Ballroom, Delta Bessborough

Saskatoon

CAIMS rSCMAI President Ian Frigaard called the meeting to order at 12:10pm.

1. Approval of the Minutes of the AGM of June 18, 2013:

Ian briefly summarized the minutes which are available in the Fall newslettersent out to members and posted on the CAIMS rSCMAI website. It was notedthat it would be a good idea to email the minutes to members a week beforethe meeting.

Motion (Dhavide Aruliah/Ron Haynes): Approve the Minutes of the AnnualGeneral Meeting of June 18, 2013. Carried.

2. Business Arising From the Minutes:

None.

3. President’s Report:

Ian Frigaard presented the following report as CAIMS rSCMAI President.

2013/14 has been a busy year after the excellent meeting in Quebec Citylast year (thanks again to our colleagues from Laval). The CAIMS rSCMAIboard has been working hard on membership, supporting applied mathemat-ics activities and on modifying the organisational infrastructure. We haveagain benefited from PIMS in our www-support, but this has been progres-sively transferred to the CAIMS rSCMAI Executive and those responsiblefor activity groups. In addition to the www, we are in the process of portingthe membership database to the new server and updating it. We are fortu-nate in having a secretary and treasurer who are technologically proficientin dealing with these matters. I thank all the board for their service, but inparticular would like to thank Dhavide Aruliah, Sharene Bungay, Matt Davi-son, Ron Haynes for their sterling efforts, and of course Ray Spiteri who hasbeen exceptionally busy in organising this year’s meeting. You may noticesome similarity between the www-site from last year and this year’s meeting.Ray & Dhavide, with help from colleagues from Laval have been moving to-wards development of our own conference templates and financial support(via RegOnline) to ease the burden for future organisers.

Sadly Dhavide and Matt will be leaving the board this year, as will HongmeiZhu and Nilima Nigam. We thank all of them for their service to CAIMS rSCMAIover the past 3 years (or more). We welcome to the board as members at

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large Huaxiong Huang (York) and Steve Ruuth (SFU), but also thank sin-cerely those CAIMS rSCMAI members who stood unsuccessfully for elec-tion – please try again! After serving 2 terms as treasurer Dhavide will enjoya well-earned rest, being replaced by Lucy Campbell (Carleton); welcometo the board. At last years’ AGM we voted to enlarge the Executive by theaddition of a Communications Officer. Luciano Buono (UOIT) was electedto be the first holder of this position; welcome to the board Luciano. I lookforward to working with all the new and existing members in the comingyear. Executive business has been made easier through monthly skype meet-ings, lessening the amount of business that builds up. Convenient also forsabbatical years.

As a new position, the terms of reference of the Communications Officerneed defining, but one key goal for this year will be to manage the translationof the www-site into French. This will complete the upgrade of our www-site as well as improve accessibility to an important segment of Canadianapplied mathematicians. Whether we do this by contract or by establishmentof a French translation committee (volunteers will be called for) remains tobe discussed with Luciano.

This year CAIMS rSCMAI selected 5 prizewinners as follows:

• Cecil Graham Doctoral Dissertation Award: Frances McKay of the Uni-versity of Western Ontario

• CAIMS/PIMS Early Career Award: Geoff Wild of the University ofWestern Ontario

• CAIMS-MPrime Industrial Mathematics Prize: John Stockie of SimonFraser University

• CAIMS Research Prize: Michael Doebeli of the University of BritishColumbia

• Arthur Beaumont Distinguished Service Award: Arvind Gupta of MI-TACS

These 5 prizes will be awarded at this meeting, at the Wednesday Banquet.I would like to thank the selection committee chairs, members of the com-mittees and CAIMS rSCMAI members who put their energy into nominatingcolleagues. Next year MPrime will be replaced by the Fields Institute as co-sponsor of the Industrial Mathematics prize. We thank MPrime for the pastcollaboration and look forward to working with Fields on the new prize.

CAIMS rSCMAI has continued to support a number of local and nationalactivities in the mathematical sciences, (e.g. high schools, CUMC). Althoughnot a funding agency, our budgets have been healthy in recent years and theexecutive has tried to approve quickly modest requests to increase our impact.

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For example, with CUMC, apart from direct sponsorship, we have agreed tosupply annually the names of 3-4 applied mathematicians from universitieslocal to the conference, e.g. Jean-Christophe Nave will speak at this year’sconference. We have also been active with the institutes and with ICIAM.

I am entering the second year of my presidency, after which Ray Spiteri willtake over. Sharene will also retire next year, after 2 terms as secretary. Itis therefore time to look for a new President (Elect) and Secretary, pleaseconsider whether you or one of your colleagues would serve well in eithercapacity and send your suggestions to Ray Spiteri, chair of the NominationsCommittee.

Motion (Ray Spiteri/John Stockie): Accept the President’s report. Carried.

4. Treasurer’s Report:

Dhavide Aruliah presented the following report as CAIMS rSCMAI Trea-surer.

The CAIMS rSCMAI fiscal year runs from May 1–April 30. We saw a largewindfall this year with $7500 from the Fields Institute in support of the 2013meeting, as well as $35000 from the 2010 meeting. Our expenses increasedthis year as well, partially due to costs associated with setting up RegOnline(directly rather than going through MITACS). All of our registration andmembership renewals are now being done online. We are also now takingcare of the finances for the annual meetings directly rather than having thelocal organizers take care of this. The net bank balance is $108000. We stillhave a GIC with MITACS as well. Expense numbers have gone up since wehave started including the annual meeting in our financial report. Financialreview has been conducted by Omnibus Tax Accounting (Toronto).

Dhavide reported that some of the activity groups have requested money tosupport certain events, some of which have been granted.

Dhavide clarified that handling the finances for the annual meeting directlystarted with the 2013 meeting. The 2013 meeting ran a deficit of about $1000.It was noted that support for the annual meeting previously included $2500from each of Fields, MITACS, PIMS, and CRM. In the absence of MITACS,the annual support is now only $7500.

John Stockie asked if there were plans for the sizable bank balance, sincewe are a charitable society. Dhavide reported that the formation of activ-ity groups was a step in that direction. Also, this will become important asCAIMS rSCMAI is required to change its status to a non-for-profit Corpora-tion. Ian reported that each activity group would be able to access $1000 peryear. The possibility of supporting an ICIAM Prize or sponsoring studentsfrom developing countries to attend meetings has been discussed.

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Dhavide pointed out that without the $35K from CAIMS 2010 we wouldhave run a deficit this year. It is possible that we will run a deficient thiscoming year due to some anticipated expenses.

Ian asked that anyone with suggestions for spending the money forward themto the Board.

Motion (Ron Haynes/Greg Lewis): Accept the Treasurer’s report. Carried.

5. Secretary’s Report:

Sharene Bungay presented the following report as CAIMS rSCMAI Secre-tary.

Work has continued this year on the new CAIMS website. This includes theformation of six Activity groups. The leaders of each group now have accessto add content to the website, and many have done so.

There were 9 e-News sent out this past year, all of which are available on thewebsite, as is our Fall newsletter. Previous newsletters (print and electronic)are available online as well.

Elections were held in the Spring for two Members-at-Large, Treasurer, andCommunications Officer. With a tied election in 2013, and the resulting ad-ditional member on the board, we are replacing three current Members-at-Large with two new members. Sharene thanked the members whose termsare complete this year for their service, and welcomed the new members tothe Board.

Motion (Jacques Bélair/John Stockie): Accept the Secretary’s report. Car-

ried.

6. Future CAIMS Meetings:

Ian reported that the 2015 meeting will be held at Wilfrid Laurier Universityin Waterloo. The main organizer for the meeting is Roderick Melnik. Therewas also a bid from Western University Department of Mechanical Engineer-ing to host the 2015 meeting. After some consideration it was decided that itwould be best to hold the meeting at Laurier joint with AMMCS. The West-ern bid was from Prof. Floryan, for a joint meeting with CANCAM (May31–June 4). However, it was felt that the synergy was better with AMMCS,and it was decided that the meeting would be held the week after CANCAMin case some people would like to attend both meetings. The dates for theCAIMS meeting have been set for June 7–12. The main themes for the meet-ing will be determined soon, and will include Scientific Computing (secondCanadian Symposium). CAIMS will propose four additional themes, andsuggestions are welcome. There will also be a call for minisymposium pro-posals.

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We have received one proposal to host the 2016 meeting, from the Universityof Alberta. The decision will likely be made in September. If anyone wouldlike to submit a proposal, please send it to the board before then. We havealso been approached by CMS regarding a joint meeting, but have decided tohold a standalone meeting for 2016. We could possibly hold a joint meetingwith CMS in 2017, perhaps on the east coast.

7. Membership Committee Report:

Matt Davison presented the following report as Co-Chair of the CAIMS rSCMAIMembership Committee.

Matt reported that the leadership of both the Membership Committee and theLiaison Committee was jointly held by himself and Ron Haynes this pastyear. Ron will take over the job next year.

The Liaison Committee should consist of a representative from each institu-tion (possibly more than one in some institutions, where more than one unithas a membership). This committee has been renewed this year, with mostuniversities across the country having a member. The committee is used as amechanism to send around information regarding membership renewal, andas a point of contact for members wishing to connect with the Society.

Our membership is currently at an all-time high, partially due to the highnumber of participants at the Québec meeting that were not CAIMS mem-bers. This year we saw a similar phenomenon where most meeting attendeesare not CAIMS members, and most CAIMS members are not coming to themeeting. This is an opportunity to grow our membership.

Matt asked everyone to please renew their membership early in the year, orbuy a lifetime membership.

Ron added that now that the Liaison committee has reached a steady-state, itcan be added to the website.

Ian noted that we would normally have a more detailed Membership Com-mittee report, but we are currently experiencing problems with the database.

Motion (Lucy Campbell/Ray Spiteri): Accept the Membership Committee’sreport. Carried.

8. Renewal of incorporation status:

Dhavide Aruliah presented the following report.

CAIMS rSCMAI became incorporated around 2000. There have been re-cent changes to the Corporations Canada Act, and we now have to transi-tion to a not-for-profit Corporation. Action is required by October 2014.Other societies have had to go through this transition as well. Jacques Bélaircommented that the CMS has been working on this transition for about 18

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months, and the Statistical Society for about a year. There have been a num-ber of issues that have resulted in having to change the By-laws for thesesocieties. Dhavide reported that the Executive and the Board will be workingon this in the near future and since the membership must vote on changes tothe By-laws, there may be a vote in the Fall. The Board welcomes input frommembers who may have expertise in this area. It was noted that it is impor-tant to vote due to rules around quorum. It was asked if there is any benefitto incorporation. Dhavide noted that the original reason for incorporationwas related to issues around liability. CAIMS rSCMAI has to have some sortof status for financial accountability, and a not-for-profit corporation is moreappropriate than a charity. It was noted that the CMS Executive Director hasbeen leading the CMS efforts in this transition and may be a good source ofadvice. It was suggested that it might be good to seek legal advice; Dhavideconfirmed that this is the plan.

9. Other Business:

(a) Ian reported that the Activity groups have been set up, and Luciano willbe contacting people about joining the groups. Members who would liketo join a group can contact Luciano. It would be good to have the groupsbecome more active.

(b) Hongmei Zhu reported on the status of the Math Education initiative.The plan is to have a High School Mathematical Modelling Contest. Itis a good time for CAIMS to lead the effort in this regard. Such an ef-fort will increase the visibility and appreciation of applied mathematicsin Canada, as well as promote math education in high school and in-crease undergraduate enrolment in math. The plan is start the process inthe Greater Toronto Area, where there are 164 secondary schools, andCAIMS members already have good contacts within the school system.If successful in the GTA then we will expand to Ontario, and then acrossthe country. To make this project a success volunteers will be needed.Anyone who is interested should contact Hongmei. The goal is to runthe first contest in November 2015.

Homgmei also reported that she will be setting up an Activity groupin Mathematics Education. This will also increase the visibility of thesociety, and will help with recruiting students to Mathematics.

Motion (Lucy Campbell/Ron Haynes): Adjournment (1:07pm). Carried.

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Committee Membership

1. Cecil Graham Doctoral Dissertation Award Committee: James Watmough(Chair, UNB), Colin Denniston (UWO), Chen Greif (UBC), Greg Lewis(UOIT), Georges Zaccour (HEC)

2. Arthur Beaumont Distinguished Service Award Committee: JacquesBélair (Chair, UdeM), Bob Russell (SFU), Sam Shen (UCSD)

3. CAIMS Research Prize Committee: Jianhong Wu (Chair, York), AndréFortin (Laval), Sam Howison (Oxford), Hans De Sterck (Waterloo), MichaelWard (UBC)

4. CAIMS/PIMS Early Career Award in Applied Mathematics: Paulinevan den Driessche (Chair, UVic) (PIMS), John Bush (MIT) (PIMS), DanielCoombs (UBC) (PIMS), Steve Ruuth (SFU) (CAIMS), Huaxiong Huang(York) (CAIMS)

5. CAIMS-Fields Industrial Mathematics Prize: Matheus Grasselli (Chair,McMaster) (Fields), Brian Wetton (UBC) (Fields), Mary Pugh (Toronto)(Fields), Siv Sivaloganathan (Waterloo) (CAIMS), John Stockie (SFU) (CAIMS)

6. Nominating Committee: Ray Spiteri (Chair, Saskatchewan), Sharene Bun-gay (Memorial), Lucy Campbell (Carleton), Ian Frigaard (UBC), JianhongWu (York)

7. Membership Committee: Ronald Haynes (Chair, Memorial), Sharene Bun-gay (Memorial), Lucy Campbell (Carleton), Roderick Melnik (Laurier), Jean-Christophe Nave (McGill)

8. CAIMS 2015 General Chairs: Jacques Bélair (UdeM), Roman Makarov(Laurier), Roderick Melnik (Laurier)

9. Liaison Committee: Ronald Haynes (Chair, Memorial), Dhavide Aruliah(UOIT), Maurice Benson (Lakehead), Lucy Campbell (Carleton), GeorgeChen (CBU), Troy Day (Queen’s), Marie-Isabelle Farinas (UQAC), ChenGreif (UBC), Cody Hyndman (Concordia), Silvana Ilie (Ryerson), RichardKarsten (Acadia), Serpil Kocabiyk (Memorial), Marc Laforest (École Poly-technique), Victor LeBlanc (Ottawa), Michael Li (Alberta), Roderick Mel-nik (WLU), Marco Pollanen (Trent), Ray Spiteri (Saskatchewan), Ken Sul-ston (UPEI), José Urquiza (Laval), Justin Wan (Waterloo), James Watmough(UNB), Hongmei Zhu (York)

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Report on CAIMS rSCMAI 2014

by Raymond Spiteri

The 35th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Applied and Industrial MathematicsSociety was held June 22–26, 2014 at the Delta Bessborough Hotel in Saskatoon.The meeting was held in conjunction with the Canadian Symposium on Fluid Dy-namics (CSFD) and attracted 163 participants.

CAIMS 2014 featured five scientific themes in the areas of Applied Analysisand Dynamical Systems (organized by Luciano Buono (UOIT), Adam Oberman(McGill), Michael Ward (UBC)), Financial Mathematics (organized by Matt Davi-son (Western), Bruno Remillard (HEC), Tony Ware (Calgary)), Fluid Dynamics(in conjunction with the CSFD and organized by Lucy Campbell (Carleton), PeterMinev (Alberta), Robert Owens (Montreal)), Mathematical Biology (organized byHermann Eberl (Guelph), Thomas Hillen (Alberta), Xiaoqiang Zhao (MUN)), andScientific and High-Performance Computing (organized by André Fortin (Laval),Ronald Haynes (MUN), Steven Ruuth (SFU)) and a total of 37 minisymposia.The meeting had plenary speakers associated with each theme: Diogo Gomes(KAUST), Robert Elliott (Calgary), George Karniadakis (Brown), Daniel Coombs(UBC), and Martin Gander (Geneva).

Other notable events held at the meeting included a Software Carpentry Boot-camp, an NSERC Discovery Grant information session, and a poster session.Many delegates also took part in a tour of the Canadian Light Source (Canada’snational synchrotron).

The meeting also featured four CAIMS prize lectures and a public lecture.The CAIMS prizes awarded at the meeting, their respective winners, and prize

lecture titles were:

1. Cecil Graham Doctoral Dissertation Award: Frances Mackay (UWO), “Hy-brid Lattice Boltzmann - Molecular Dynamics Simulations With Both Simpleand Complex Fluids”

2. CAIMS Research Prize: Michael Doebeli (UBC), “Evolutionary Dynamicsin High-Dimensional Phenotype Spaces”

3. CAIMS-Mprime Industrial Mathematics Prize: John Stockie (SFU), “Chal-lenges and Opportunities in “Mathematics For Industry””

4. CAIMS/PIMS Early Career Award: Geoff Wild (Western), “Uncovering thelogic of animal help”

Chris Essex (Western) gave a riveting public lecture entitled “Slow Time” thatexamined the narrow window of time scales that humans experience. Through im-ages, videos, and calculations, Prof. Essex contemplated what the view would belike if the window were expanded to include ultra-slow and ultra-fast time scales.

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The Arthur Beaumont Distinguished Service Award was awarded to ArvindGupta (UBC). The award was presented at the conference banquet, where theattendees were also treated to the musical talents of local entertainer StephenMaguire.

CAIMS and the local organizers (Jason Boisvert, Gordon Sarty, and RaymondSpiteri) express their sincere appreciation for the generous support received fromCanada’s three Mathematics Institutes (Fields, CRM, PIMS), with particular thanksto PIMS for sponsoring the public lecture and Software Carpentry Workshopand for co-sponsoring the Industrial Mathematics prize and the CSFD confer-ence. Heartfelt thanks for their support also go to Mprime, the University ofSaskatchewan and its Department of Mathematics and Statistics, and Lucky Bas-tard Distillers. Last but not least, the conference benefitted greatly from the expe-rience, energy, and enthusiasm of Turner Event Management and the many studentvolunteers.

Opening remarks by Ray Spiteri,CAIMS rSCMAI President-Electand meeting organizer.

Ian Frigaard, CAIMS rSCMAI Presidentand Ray Spiteri, meeting organizer.

Ian Frigaard, Bob Russell andRonald Haynes enjoying the Banquetperformance.

CAIMS rSCMAI members attendingthe banquet.

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Society Updates BULLETIN NEWSLETTER

2014 CAIMS rSCMAI Research Prize

by Jacques Bélair

The 2014 CAIMS rSCMAI Research Prize was awarded to Prof. Michael Doebeliof the University of British Columbia “for his contributions to the mathematicaltheory of the evolution of diversity and the evolution of cooperation.”

Michael Doebeli is one of the foremost applied mathematicians working inevolutionary biology in the world. He is the main authority for the mathematicaltheory of the evolution of organismal diversity, and his research led to a paradigmshift in how scientists understand the origin of new species. Once viewed as the-oretically impossible, biologists now accept Prof. Doebeli’s work showing thatsympatric speciation, that is, the formation of new species in the absence of ge-ographic separation, is theoretically plausible, and that it occurs in natural andexperimental systems. He has also made major contributions to the theory of co-operation, where his work has led to a unified understanding of the evolution ofcooperation in natural systems ranging from microbes to complex human soci-eties.

2014 CAIMS rSCMAI Arthur BeaumontDistinguished Service Award

by Jacques Bélair

The 2014 Arthur Beaumont Distinguished Service Award was presented toProf. Arvind Gupta, University of British Columbia “for his leadership of the MI-TACS network”.

The leadership of Prof. Gupta as director of the National Center of Excellenceon Mathematics of Information Technology and Complex Systems (MITACS) hasbrought about fundamental changes in the way in which much of applied mathe-matics is carried out in Canada, and a paradigmatic shift in the perception of themathematical sciences by the Canadian industrial and public sectors. Investigatorsfrom MITACS expanded the range of scientific areas addressed by mathematicalmethodologies into non-traditional areas of “industrial mathematics” by the seam-less inclusion of statistical, computing and engineering scientists breaking downbarriers and bringing these disciplines closer to each other as well as to the re-search sponsors. MITACS leadership in the organization of ICIAM 2011 in Van-couver was a key factor in its success. Prof. Gupta’s inclusive and constructiveattitude, his energetic and visionary leadership have been exemplary and highlybeneficial to the CAIMS community.

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BULLETIN NEWSLETTER Society Updates

2014 CAIMS-MprimeIndustrial Mathematics Prize

by Ian Frigaard

The CAIMS rSCMAI-MPrime Industrial Research Prize was awarded to Prof.John Stockie of Simon Fraser University. This prize is awarded in recognitionof exceptional research in any branch of industrial mathematics.

John Stockie’s industrial modelling work has had an important impact in the en-ergy industry (Ballard Power Systems), agriculture (North American Maple SyrupCouncil), and pollution control (Teck-Cominco). In his letter of support, a repre-sentative at Teck Metals Ltd writes “Dr. Stockie has provided excellent value toTeck, with innovative solutions to extremely complex problems.” Academic let-ters of support were also enthusiastic, “one could consider Dr. Stockie an ambas-sador for the discipline, whose work is ideally suited to raise public awareness forthe usefulness of mathematical and computational sciences in real world applica-tions,” and “He has also been a dedicated and effective advocate of the importanceof mathematics to industry, while also successfully training a new generation ofindustrial mathematicians.” Dr. Stockie has obtained significant research resultsin computational fluid dynamics, free boundary value problems and multiphasereactant flows in porous media, that have been published in journals of the higheststandards including SIAM Review, SIAM Journal of Applied Mathematics, andJournal of Computational Physics. Aside from his scientific activity, Dr. Stockiehas played an important leadership role in industrial mathematics in Canada as oneof the key individuals who made the MITACS NCE an incredible success over atwelve year period.

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2014 CAIMS/PIMS Early Career Awardin Applied Mathematics

by Bud Homsy

The Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society (CAIMS) and PIMSare pleased to announce that Prof. Geoff Wild of the University of Western On-tario has been awarded the 2014 CAIMS/PIMS Early Career Award in AppliedMathematics. Prof. Wild obtained his PhD in 2004 from the Department of Math-ematics and Statistics at Queen’s University. He has held post-doctoral positionsat both Queen’s University and the University of Western Ontario. Dr. Wild joinedthe Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of Western Ontario in2008 as an Assistant Professor. He received his award at the 2014 Annual CAIMSmeeting in Saskatoon in June, 2014, and delivered a lecture entitled “Uncoveringthe logic of animal help”.

Prof. Wild was cited “for his creative use of mathematical modelling to addressfundamental questions in evolutionary biology”. He harnesses approaches fromdynamical systems and stochastic processes to investigate the adaptive signifi-cance of animal behaviour. He has tackled a variety of topics, including parentalinvestment in offspring, animal movement, altruism, and pathogen virulence. Hismost recent work focuses on the evolutionary transition of populations of solitaryindividuals into those with more complex, social organization.

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BULLETIN NEWSLETTER Society Updates

2013 CAIMS rSCMAI Cecil GrahamDoctoral Dissertation Award

by Ian Frigaard

The 2013 CAIMS rSCMAI Cecil Graham Doctoral Dissertation Award was awardedto Dr. Frances Mackay of the University of Western Ontario. Her thesis titled:“Hybrid lattice Boltzmann - molecular dynamics simulations with both simple andcomplex fluids”, was completed under the supervision of Professor Colin Den-niston in the Department of Applied Mathematics at Western. The dissertationaddresses the problem of modelling colloidal structures in complex fluids and, inparticular, liquid crystals. These models consist of coupled systems of nonlineardifferential equations describing the dynamics of the liquid crystal and the mov-ing boundaries of the colloidal particles in the fluid. The main contribution is thedevelopment of a new method, the hybrid lattice Boltzmann-molecular dynamicssimulation, for coupling point and composite particles to the fluid. The thesis hasopened new areas for experiment and industrial application.

An honourable mention in this year’s competition was given to Dr. Jeffrey Mus-grave from the University of Ottawa, supervised by Professor Frithjof Lutscher.

CAIMS rSCMAI 2015 Election: Call for Nominations

by Sharene Bungay

CAIMS rSCMAI will be holding an election in March 2015 for:

• One Member-at-Large position on the Board of Directors

• Secretary

• President-Elect

The member-at-large position will fill the position to be vacated by Roderick Mel-nik, whose term will come to an end in 2015. The Secretary position will bevacated by Sharene Bungay. The President-Elect position will be vacated by RaySpiteri, who will become President at the 2015 Annual Meeting. At that time, IanFrigaard will become the Past-President, in the position vacated by Jianhong Wu.The Secretary and President-Elect appointments will be for two years, while themember-at-large position will be for a three-year term.

All members of CAIMS rSCMAI are invited to put forward names of candi-dates for these offices. Nominations should reach the CAIMS Secretary, ShareneBungay ([email protected]) by January 31, 2015.

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The 50 Year Quest for the Higgs Boson:The story of the 2013 Nobel Prize

Professor Matt Strassler Gives the 2014 Nerenberg Lecture

by David Jeffrey

The 2014 lecture took advantage of the public interest generated by the 2013 Nobelprize in Physics. The discovery of the Higgs boson was a popular news item inlate 2013, and a Nerenberg lecture describing the nature of the particle and itsimportance was a timely outreach activity. Professor Matt Strassler spoke to alarge audience, explaining the Higgs field and its relation to mass and the Higgsboson.

Matt Strassler is currently a visiting scholar at Harvard University, havingserved until recently as a full professor at Rutgers University. He has also servedas a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Washington,and as a visiting professor at Harvard. A member of the American Physical So-ciety, he is a recipient of a Sloan Foundation award and of an Outstanding JuniorInvestigator award from the U.S. Department of Energy. He has written over 80papers on string theory and on particle physics, and often acts as a consultant tothe experimental physicists working at the Large Hadron Collider, the giant parti-cle accelerator in Geneva, Switzerland where the Higgs particle was discovered in2012. Professor Strassler’s view is that science is one of the world’s great specta-tor sports, and should be a source of joy and excitement for the public, especiallyfor kids and for kids at heart. He often gives public lectures on science, and has awebsite and blog (see profmattstrassler.com) aimed at informing and educatingnon-experts about particle physics and about the scientific process.

22

BULLETIN NEWSLETTER News from the Math Institutes

News from the Fields Institute

by Carl Riehm

The current thematic program is Variational Problems in Physics, Economics andGeometry which runs until the end of 2014 - see http://www.fields.utoronto.

ca/programs/scientific/14-15/variationalprob/ for more information.The Institute is also a sponsor of a Conference on Analysis, Spectra, and Num-

ber Theory at Princeton University during December 15–19 of this year. Seehttps://sites.google.com/site/asnt2014/home.

The next thematic program (January–June, 2015) is Statistical Inference, Learn-ing and Models for Big Data. It emphasizes both applied and theoretical aspectsof statistical inference, learning and models in big data. The opening conferencewill serve as an introduction to the program, concentrating on overview lecturesand background preparation. Workshops throughout the year will emphasize deeplearning, statistical learning, visualization, networks, health and social policy, andthe physical sciences. A number of allied activities at PIMS, CRM and AARMSare also planned. This thematic program is taking place with the cooperation ofthe new Canadian Statistical Sciences Institute (CANSSI). It is expected that allactivities will be webcast using the FieldsLive system to permit wider participa-tion.Conferences and Workshops for this thematic program:

January 12–23, 2015Opening Conference and Boot CampKeynote Speaker: Emmanuel Candes (Stanford University)Organizing committee: Nancy Reid (Chair), Sallie Keller, Lisa Lix, Bin Yu

January 26–30, 2015Workshop on Big Data and Statistical Machine LearningOrganizing committee: Ruslan Salakhutdinov (Chair), Dale Schuurmans,Yoshua Bengio, Hugh Chipman, Bin Yu

February 9–13 , 2015Workshop on Optimization and Matrix Methods in Big DataOrganizing Committee: Stephen Vavasis (Chair), Anima Anandkumar, Pet-ros Drineas, Michael Friedlander, Nancy Reid, Martin Wainwright.

February 23–27, 2015Workshop on Visualization for Big Data: Strategies and PrinciplesOrganizing Committee: Nancy Reid (Chair), Susan Holmes, Snehelata Huzur-bazar, Hadley Wickham, Leland Wilkinson

March 23–27, 2015Workshop on Big Data in Health Policy

23

News from the Math Institutes BULLETIN NEWSLETTER

Organizing Committee: Lisa Lix (Chair), Constantine Gatsonis, Sharon-LiseNormand

April 13–16, 2015Workshop on Big Data for Social PolicyOrganizing Committee: Sallie Keller (Chair), Robert Groves, Mary Thomp-son

June 13–14, 2015Closing ConferenceOrganizing Committee: Nancy Reid (Chair), Sallie Keller, Lisa Lix, HughChipman, Rus Salakhutdinov, Yoshua Bengio, Richard Lockhart to be heldat AARMS of Dalhousie University,

The following graduate courses will be offered in this thematic program:

Graduate Course 1: Large Scale Machine Lei

(no classes Feb 16–20)Stewart Library, Fields InstituteInstructor: Russ Salakhutdinov, Departments of Computer Science and of Statis-tical Sciences, University of Toronto

Description: Statistical machine learning is a very dynamic field that lies atthe intersection of statistics and computational sciences. The goal of statisticalmachine learning is to develop algorithms that can “learn” from data using statis-tical and computational methods. Over the last decade, driven by rapid advancesin numerous fields, such as computational biology, neuroscience, data mining,signal processing, and finance, applications that involve large amounts of high-dimensional data have become common.The goal of this course is to introduce core concepts of large-scale machine learn-ing and discuss scalable techniques for analyzing large amounts of data. Boththeoretical and practical aspects will be discussed.

Graduate Course 2: Topics in Inference for Big Data

Friday, 1 p.m.–4 p.m, January 5 to March 31 (no classes Feb 16–20)Stewart Library, Fields InstituteInstructors: Nancy Reid, Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Toronto;Mu Zhu, Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, University of Waterloo

Description: This course will introduce students to the topics under discussionduring the thematic program on Statistical Inference in Big Data, with a mix ofbackground lectures and guest lectures. The goal is to prepare students, postdoc-toral fellows, and other interested participants to benefit from upcoming work-shops in the thematic program, and to provide a venue for further discussion ofkeynote presentations after the workshops.

These courses will be streamed using FieldsLive, and students are welcome

to attend online. The timetable and requirements for the course will be made

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available at the first lecture in January, 2015.

The next thematic program will be a month-long thematic program on Delay Dif-ferential Equations during the month of May (2015) organized around four inter-connected sub-themes: (i) Differential equations with variable delay; (ii) Delaydifferential equations in physical sciences and engineering; (iii) Structured delaysystems; (iv) Delay differential equations in medicine and physiology. For moreinformation, see http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/programs/scientific/14-15/

DDE/

The following thematic programs will also be held next year:

The Centenary of Einstein’s Equations of General Relativity - May, June 2015.Computer Algebra - July to December 2015.

Some future events (held at the Institute unless otherwise mentioned) in whichmembers of CAIMS might be interested are:

2015:

April 9-10 Distinguished Lecture Series in Statistical Science, Terry Speed, Uni-versity of California, Berkeley.

Date to be announced Distinguished Lecture Series in Statistical Science, BinYu, University of California, Berkeley.

March 9-11 Conference on Quantum Probability and the Mathematical Mod-

elling of Decision Making

June 11-14 Theory Canada 10 (Theoretical Physics)

June 17-19 (tentative dates) 7th Summer Solstice International Conference on

Discrete Models of Complex Systems

July 13-17 Conference on Quantum Groups and Quantum Information Theory

(to be held at Herstmonceux Castle, UK)

2016:

Summer Dynamics of Biological Systems (to be held at the University of Al-berta)

July 11-15 World Congress of Probability and Statistics

The Fields video archive can be accessed at www.fields.utoronto.ca/video-archive.In particular most of the events listed above can be seen there.

Some application deadlines:Thematic or Focus Program Proposals, March 15 and September 15 of each yearPostdoctoral Fellowships, see www.fields.utoronto.ca/honours/postdoc.html

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General Scientific Activity Proposals, October 15, February 15 and June 15 ofeach year

In addition, a small number of offices are available for non-program visitors, al-though the Fields Institute normally does not fund such visits. While visiting theFields Institute, it is expected that you will carry out your own research, partic-ipate in the activities related to your interests and collaborate with other visitingmembers. During your stay at the Institute, library privileges, computer accessand other amenities, such as office space if available, will be provided. Interestedcandidates are asked to send us a letter stating the purpose of their visit and whythe Fields Institute is their preferred location of activity. In additon please includethe proposed dates of the visit, curriculum vitae and the names and contact infor-mation of 3 references who are familiar with your work to:Visiting Member Applicationc/o Manager of Scientific ProgramsThe Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences222 College Street, 2nd FloorToronto, OntarioM5T 3J1 CanadaPhone (416) 348-9710 Fax: (416) 348-9714Email: [email protected]

Further information on all programs and activities at the Institute can be found bygoing to the Insitute home page www.fields.utoronto.ca.

News from the Centre de recherches mathématiques

by Galia Dafni

It was announced a few months ago that NSERC will be providing 1,15M$ peryear to the CRM in the context of the CTRMS program. In addition, 500K$ havebeen awarded annually by NSERC again, to the CRM, Fields Institute and PIMSas a 3-year research partnership grant, for the establishment of the Institute In-novation Platform (IIP), aimed at creating new collaborations between industryand researchers in the mathematical sciences. To aid in this initiative, the Advi-sory Committee of the CRM for the IIP has been formed, consisting of prominentscientists in management positions: Michel Carreau (Director Renewable Power,Hatch), Denis Faubert (President-Director General, CRIAQ), Pierre Trudeau (VicePresident of Business Development, GIRO), and Roxana Zangor (Manager, Prod-uct Reliability & Safety, Pratt & Whitney Canada). In addition, the CRM has hiredStéphane Rouillon as Partnerships Development Officer to help support its efforts

26


in industrial mathematics, particularly efforts related to the IIP. Mr. Rouillon willbe working with Odile Marcotte, the CRM Deputy Director - Partnerships.

In June 2014, Iosif Polterovich took over the position of Deputy Director -Scientific Programs at the CRM, replacing Octav Cornea.

The CRM has recently experienced a remarkable expansion of all its laborato-ries. In fact, three new laboratories were established and newly integrated: one inprobability, one in actuarial and financial mathematics (QUANTACT) and one inmathematical biology (CAMBAM).

In addition to the numerous activities organized by its laboratories, the CRMhosts or sponsors a wide array of activities as part of its thematic programs and itsgeneral program. The 2014-15 thematic year: Number Theory, from ArithmeticStatistics to Zeta Elements, started off with a summer school (Séminaire de mathé-matiques supérieures) on the work of Manjul Bhargava, entitled “Counting Arith-metic Objects”. The ongoing program includes visits and lectures by four Aisen-stadt Chairs: Pierre Colmez (CNRS & Paris VI Jussieu), Sophie Morel (Prince-ton), Carl Pomerance (Dartmouth) and Zeév Rudnick (Tel Aviv), and has attractedmany long-term visitors and postdoctoral fellows. The CRM’s 2015 Summer-FallThematic Semester will focus on AdS/CFT, Holography, Integrability (Mathemat-ical Physics), and in 2016 the thematic semesters (subject to approval) will fo-cus on Probabilistic Methods in Geometry, Topology and Spectral Theory and onComputational Mathematics in Emerging Applications.

In the general program, the spring of 2014 saw such interesting activities asthe Workshop on Mathematical Methods and Models in Laser Filamentation inMarch, the Grande Conférence in May by Florin Diacu (Victoria), and the first everCRM Nirenberg Lectures in Geometric Analysis, delivered by Alessio Figalli (UTAustin). The next instalment in this series will be held in March 2015, featuringAndré Neves (Imperial College London).

During the summer of 2014 many activities in mathematical physics were heldat the CRM, while elsewhere the 2014 AARMS-CRM Workshop on AdaptiveMethods for PDEs was held in St. John’s, Newfoundland, in August.

Among the highlights of the general program in the fall of 2014 was the work-shop on Numerical Methods for Optimal Transportation in October. The workshopwas part of a new associate team, funded between INRIA and the CRM, whichbrought together a number of experts on computational optimal transportation. Itwas also the occasion for the the Grande Conférence by Yann Brenier (CNRS,École Polytechnique, Paris), entitled “Euler et les jets d’eau de Sans-Souci”. Thenext lecture in this series, aimed at the general public, will be given by Chris Dan-forth (Vermont) on “Measuring Emotional States in Real-Time”.

The fall also featured lectures by two prize winners, the 2014 André AisenstadtPrize in Mathematics recipient Sabin Cautis (UBC) and the CRM-Fields-PIMSprize recipient Niky Kamran. In January 2015, the 2014 CRM-SSC Prize recipient

27


Fang Yao (Toronto) will deliver his lecture.Upcoming activities of interest to those working in applied or industrial mathe-

matics are the Montreal Scientific Computing Days, which will take place again inlate April 2015, and The Montreal Problem Solving Workshop, planned for Au-gust 17–21, 2015. The Problem Solving workshops take place every two yearsand bring together students, researchers and industry representatives to work onconcrete problems proposed by the industry. Other activities directed at students,postdoctoral fellows and young researchers include the 2015 Séminaire de math-ématiques supérieures (Geometric and Computational Spectral Theory) and theCRM-PIMS Probability Summer School (McGill University, June 15–July 11,2015). Another summer school organized by CAMBAM, jointly with MBI (OhioState), is expected in 2015.

The CRM encourages proposals for new programs and those interested are in-vited to submit applications according to the instructions found atwww.crm.umontreal.ca/en/act/form/propositions_an.shtml

News from Pacific Institute for theMathematical Sciences

by Clare Kiernan

Scientific

It was another busy year for PIMS, across all nine sites. PIMS supported multi-ple seminar series at member universities in areas of fluid mechanics, probability,geometry and physics, number theory and more. Of the many speakers featured,some of the high profile visitors included Russel Caflish, Linda Petzold and L.Mahadevan. This year’s Marsden Memorial Lecture was held in Rio de Janeiro,Brazil and delivered by Mathieu Desbrun (Instituto Nacional de Matematica Purae Aplicada [IMPA]) and the Hugh C. Morris Lecture was held at the Universityof British Columbia and featured speaker Cédric Villani (University of Lyon andInstitut Henri Poincaré).

Summer, as usual, was the busiest season at PIMS, with the support of six sum-mer schools and more than ten workshops and conferences. The most prestigiousevent of the summer was the PIMS Focus Period on Systemic Risk - it focused onthe way the financial markets generate and propagate risk, and what kind of regula-tion can mitigate it. It involved both a summer school and workshop, held at UBC.The summer school hosted 70 student participants from around the world, as wellas a stellar cast of speakers. The workshop involved a series of invited lecturesinvolving topics such as: Strategic Complementarity, Fragility and Regulation andOptimal Control of Interbank Contagion. A panel discussion featured academic,regulators, central bankers and industry representatives who presented from their

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own perspective on systemic risk and helped to define a research agenda, espe-cially targeted for young applied mathematicians and financial engineers.

PIMS had six Collaborative Research Groups (CRGs) operating in 2014: Ap-plied Algebraic and Geometric Topology (2014–2018); Applied Combinatorics(2014–2017); Applied and Computational Harmonic Analysis (2011–2014); Op-timization: Theory, Algorithms and Applications (2012–2015); Algorithmic The-ory of Networks (2012–2015) and Geometry and Physics (2013–2016).

As the PIMS International Graduate Training Centre (IGTC) in MathematicalBiology wound down, we begin construction of a new PIMS Postdoctoral TrainingCentre in Stochastics (PTCS). The PTCS will organize summer schools in proba-bility and mathematical finance, develop networking between PIMS sites as wellas with groups in Microsoft Research and Eastern Canada and support visits bydistinguished visitors. The program will be directed by Martin Barlow (UBC) andis scheduled to begin activities in 2015.

Industrial

The PIMS/Shell lunchbox lectures in Calgary continued, exploring topics of Oceansand Multiplicative Ergodic and Oscillations in Microvascular Networks. And theIMA-PIMS Mathematical Modeling in Industry Workshop for Graduate Studentscontinues to lead PIMS’ industrial activities. It was held, for the first time, at theUniversity of British Columbia and engaged with topics from Fast Calculation ofDiffraction by Photomasks to Efficient and Robust Solution Strategies for Saddle-Point Systems.

Education and outreach

PIMS education coordinators continue to be busy with Math Manias, Math Fairs,workshops and camps taking place in schools and universities across WesternCanada. PIMS-UBC hosted the PIMS Emerging Aboriginal Scholars SummerCamp, which engaged UBC faculty and students from across campus. PIMS-SFUhosted their inaugural Academic Summer Camp for Aboriginal Students; studentsengaged in various activities including chemistry, physics, engineering, comput-ing science, earth sciences. At the University of Saskatchewan, their outreachcoordinator is working in nine classrooms at seven schools in Saskatoon, engag-ing students in hands-on math activities that include content from the curriculumand First Nations perspectives.

See www.pims.math.ca for more details.

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General News BULLETIN NEWSLETTER

2 weeks at WATERLOOA Summer School for Undergraduate Women in Math

August 12–25, 2014

by Barbara Csima and Sue Ann Campbell

The summer school was held from August 10–23, 2014 at the University of Water-loo. The goal of the summer school was to encourage women to consider pursuinggraduate studies in mathematics. 15 undergraduate women were chosen to partic-ipate from approximately 40 applicants. The participants represented 7 provincesand 13 universities. All travel and living costs for the participants were covered.

The main activity of the summer school was two mini-courses: “Kakeya sets,or, a handbook of parallel parking” taught by Malabika Pramanik (Universityof British Columbia) and “Algorithmic learning theory” taught by Karen Lange(Wellesley College). In addition to lectures and assignments, the students workedon group projects for each course and made final presentations on the last day.

Other activities included guest lectures by Catherine Sulem (University of Toronto),Megan Dewar (The Tutte Institute), Julia Viinikka (Sun Life Financial) and a wellattended public lecture, “Understanding Tipping Points in Climate and Sustain-ability”, by Mary Lou Zeeman (Bowdoin College). The students learned aboutmathematically-oriented careers in industry through visits to Sun Life Financial,IBM and Maplesoft and interactions with women working at these companies.The students also visited the Fields Institute and spent a day enjoying the sights inNiagara Falls.

Feedback from the students and instructors was positive. We would like tothank our sponsors: The Fields Institute, PIMS, AARMS, CAIMS and the Uni-versity of Waterloo.

30

BULLETIN NEWSLETTER General News

BioMath DaysA workshop held at the University of Ottawa

May 1–2, 2014

Frithjof Lutscher

Organized by Robert Smith? and Frithjof LutscherFunded by Fields and CAIMS

This two-day workshop was primarily targeted at young researchers at the inter-section of mathematics and biology. Five internationally recognized invited speak-ers gave wonderful talks that demonstrated the breadth and depth of mathematicalbiology. Lindi Wahl (Western) presented exciting empirical research into infectedgenomes and some great stochastic models to fit those data. Troy Day (Queens)engaged the audience in a fascinating presentation and discussion on the dynamicsand management of infectious diseases. Fahima Nekka (Montréal) demonstratedthe usefulness of mathematics in understanding pharmacokinetics. Jacques Bélair(Montréal) showed some intriguing modeling work on the haematopoietic systemand delay equations. Michael Neubert (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)closed the workshop with some compelling insights into the emergence and bene-fits of marine reserves from optimal control theory.

In addition, eight young researchers gave shorter presentations on their work,and all 30+ participants had plenty of opportunity to talk and exchange ideas andsuggestions during coffee and lunch breaks and at the evening reception. Mostparticipants came from Universities in Ontario and Western Quebec, but somecame from as far away as Brazil. Quite amazingly, a number of senior researchersfrom the medical school and the government (Health Canada) had heard about theworkshop and attended the talks.

Our keynote speaker unfortunately fell severely ill on the day before the work-shop. Rather than filling the hole in the schedule with another plenary talk, theorganizers decided to run a panel discussion and question period about careerplanning and opportunities. Four plenary speakers plus the two organizers an-swered questions about their own path into research in mathematical biology andgave their opinion and advice on questions ranging from “what do I do with a 75%completed project that I am stuck on” to “how do I choose journals for publica-tion” and “how do I deal with laziness”. It was a rich and lively discussion thatshowed how manifold the pathways and opportunities are.

Overall, the workshop was a great success as it gave young researchers novelperspectives on the fascinating applications of mathematics in biology, as well asopportunities to meet internationally recognized leaders in their field. They allwent home with new contacts and inspiration.

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Canadian Undergraduate Mathematics ConferenceCarleton University

July 2–5, 2014

Arthur Mehta

On July 2nd, over 200 top math students from across Canada poured into the na-tions capital for the start of CUMC 2014, hosted by Carleton University. What en-sued was a four day epic mathfest featuring 120 student lead lectures, six keynoteaddresses as well as a recruitment fair, a LATEXworkshop, a Women in Math dis-cussion panel, a Zip-lining event, and an Ottawa river boat cruise.

For me the best part of CUMC has always been interacting with other mathiesfrom around the country, making friends and seeing student talks. Needless to say,this year was not a disappointment. We had over 200 students in attendance from34 different schools and colleges across the country. From Memorial Universityof Newfoundland to University of British Colombia and almost everywhere in be-tween, the conference truly represented the nations undergraduate student body.With nearly 120 student talks there was no shortage of interesting topics. Theseincluded interesting topics like How to Help a Group Find It’s Daddy, Ehsaan Hos-sain, University of Waterloo, and Glimpses of Hyperbolic Geometry, DominiqueRathel-Fournier, Université de Montreal. In addition to student talks, Studc mem-bers Christina Rousu and Nathan Musoke gave a two hour LATEXworkshop.

This year’s keynotes featured six top Canadian researchers. The topics werePrime Numbers and Zeta Functions, Ram Murty, Queens Univeristy, Linegalite

isoperimetrique a travers les ages, Alexandre Girouard, Laval University, The

noncommutative World, Matthew Kennedy, Carleton Univeristy, Evolving Curves

Surfaces and More, Jean-Christophe Nave, McGill University, Big Data: Math-

imatics, Statistics and Data Science, Shirley Mills, Carleton Univeristy, Average

Distributions for Ellipctic Curves, Chantal David, Concordia University.

This year’s CUMC introduced a brand new element to the conference with arecruitment fair. Graduate schools and employers from across the country wereinvited to attend a two hour recruitment fair and interact with the conference at-tendees. Nine different universities and employer recruitment teams came out.The feedback for the event was all around positive, from both attendees and re-cruiters. Hopefully this can become a permanent part of the conference, providinga source of revenue for future organizers while at the same time providing a greatbenefit for both attendees and recruiters.

Continuing with the tradition breaking down barriers and promoting an openenvironment, CUMC 2014 hosted yet another successful Women in Math discus-sion panel. Open to all genders, over 100 attendees showed up to participate ina discussion group that focused on challenges facing women pursuing careers inmathematics. The discussion was lead by a six member panel featuring three aca-

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BULLETIN NEWSLETTER General News

demics Dr. Shirley Mills, Dr. Anne Broadbent, and Dr. Monica Nevins as well asthree working professionals, Alexandra Dykes, Ima Okonny, and Angela Wilson.

The fun was not just restricted to math related activities. CUMC 2014 featuredan exciting social event. On the Thursday afternoon over 70 attendees braved rain,bugs and the threat of thunderstorms to go Zip-lining at Camp Fortune in Quebec.Luckily, weather cleared up just as we arrived and the event was a blast.

We decided to end the conference in style by hosting our closing banquet ona three floor charted cruise ship. We enjoyed a three hour boat cruise around theOttawa river and behind parliament hill. Everyone had a great time and I think thewhole experience is modeled well by the following equation.

High end catering + 2 bars + 200 mathiesOttawa River

= WIN

Blundon Seminar: Three days at MemorialA math camp for senior high school students

Memorial University of NewfoundlandMay 14–16, 2014

Margo Kondratieva

In 2014 the Blundon Seminar was held May 14–16 at Memorial University (MUN).The seminar, essentially a math camp, is an annual event which aims to empowerand encourage mathematically-inclined students from grades 10–12 to pursue fur-ther study in the subject at the university level.

Participation in the seminar is by invitation only based on the results of theBlundon, Euclid (grade 12), Fermat (grade 11), and Cayley (grade 10) contests.This year there were 13 female and 23 male participants who demonstrated con-sistently good results in these competitions.

The camp has been held every year since May 1982. It is named after ProfessorW.J. Blundon, who was the first Head of the Department of Mathematics andStatistics at MUN, and an avid problem solver. The seminar traditionally combinesintellectual and fun/sport components.

This year we had two excellent talks: “The Dark Side of the Universe” byDr. Hari Kunduri and “Two-Dimensional Non-Euclidean Geometry and CurvedSpaces” by Dr. Ryan Tifenbach. The Paper Chase activity, a mathematical scav-enger hunt, was conducted by Dr. Ivan Booth. Three problem solving sessionswere organized by Drs. Danny Dyer and Ron Haynes. One of the highlights ofthe camp was a banquet, during which the winner of the Blundon Contest waspresented with the Blundon Shield, and the winners of other contests were alsopresented with money and book prizes.

According to students’ responses, collected after the camp, this event was en-

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joyable, informative, and memorable for many of them. On behalf of the BlundonSeminar team, I would like to thank our sponsors: the NL Department of Educa-tion, NL Power, CMS, AARMS, CAIMS, the NL Teachers’ Association, Math-works, Wolfram Research, McMillan Education, Pearson Education, and Memo-rial University for their continuing support.

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newsletter 69

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